Just Another Wasteland
by Wiwuno
Summary: I always believed that man had been doomed form the start, doomed to destroy itself again and again. Damn was I ever wrong, but even when you find yourself in a place you've never seen before where all the rules are different remember, war never changes.
1. Chapter 1

Just Another Wasteland

AN: Welcome to the first chapter of my second fic Just Another Wasteland. This particular type of crossover is still fairly underpopulated so I decided to try my hand at it.

"talking"

'thinking'

"_radio or com link"_

"**Geth or reaper influenced speaking"**

Disclaimer: The mass effect and fallout games are the property of Bethesda Game studios and BioWare respectively. I hold no illusions that I am anywhere near important enough to own these games and seeing as I lack any source of income I am also a poor target for lawsuit.

_ War, war never changes. Since the dawn of man when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled for everything from god to freedom to simple psychotic rage. Even after plunging the world into a true image of atomic hell man still hasn't given up its violent quest to eradicate itself. All we've managed to do is change the look of the battlefield. In place of feuding governments we have towns fighting over the smallest amount of water, instead of political terrorists we have bands of drug crazed raiders raping, pillaging, and killing everything they can find, and instead of the once great nation that occupied this land all we have is a barren inhospitable wasteland that would gladly force you to watch as everything you loved was ripped for you, the land itself laughing as yo throw yourself at every predator and mad man begging for death to claim you, only for it to once again pass you by. _I always believed that man had been doomed form the start, doomed to destroy itself again and again. Damn was I ever wrong, but even when you find yourself in a place you've never seen before where all the rules are different and the universe is suddenly bigger than you ever imagined you can always count on one thing, war never changes.

Trudging the rocky landscape of the infamous Death valley trail Micheal Connors A.K.A The Lone Wanderer found himself wondering for the thousandth time just why the hell he decided to go through the single hottest place in the wasteland. Looking down at his trusty pip-boy he recalled why, each step was slowly bringing him closer to the legendary ruins of Fort Black a prewar military R&D facility rumored to be completely untouched by either time or scavengers. Once again turning up his suits internal cooling Micheal could understand why no one else had ever bothered to come here it was practically a death wish, just what he needed.

The sun was just reaching its apex in the sky and Micheal's visor began to darken again to keep the light taken in by his eyes at the perfect level.

' real glad I kept the visor from the stealth suit when I put this outfit together' he thought the wanderer was wearing a black almost rubber looking suit over what could only be described as the guts of a power armor suit over the rubber looking suit he wore a loose pair of dirty beige pants a pair of worn steel toed combat boots and an old leather duster with thick plates of metal and leather from the vault suit he'd received an overly perky store keeper all those years ago. Turning off to the side he moves over to a shaded area for a rest and eat his midday meal, re atomizing a bottle of ice-cold Nuka-Cola while thanking those brilliant prewar technicians that had first invented it that what ever technology his pip-boy used was able to keep food fresh and unchanged from the minute he atomizes it. He takes out a bowl of what an old friend from the brotherhood had once dubbed Lurk'n Beans, Micheal sits down to enjoy his brief meal.

The visor on his helmet hisses and slowly draws back to reveal a young man in his mid to late twenties his short blond hair messy and darkened a few shades with sweat and dirt. On his face is a scraggly goatee most likely from not having shaved for a few days. Even while resting and enjoying his meal his strange golden eyes continue scour the landscape searching for any potential threat, his ears straining for slightest sign of danger. Finishing up his meal his helmet snaps back into place and picks up his most trusted rifle an old gun named perforater, the old assault rifle makes up for its slower than average rate of fire with is higher stopping power and silencer scope combination not seen to often on guns of its model. Hefting the to his back he pulls up the hood to his duster and makes his way back to the path following it deeper into the ominously named valley.

After several hours more of walking he finally spotted his goal Fort Black sitting at the bottom of the hill it truly had no sign of damage from the war he had come to expect from prewar buildings, the fence was even still standing. Picking up his pace he found himself outside the main gate within the hour. Picking the lock on the chain he pushes the fence open and pulls his rifle from his back preparing for the chance of any robot security guards that had remained active over the centuries be proceeds forward and up to the front entrance. Once again having to pick the lock he slowly and quietly crept inside the building. Flipping a switch on his belt he activates his suits stealth field and slowly makes his way deeper into the facility.

Several floors down and deep underground he finally finds a working terminal, after a successful hacking attempt he manages to get into the restricted data stored within the forts archives. Checking the research notes he begins to scoff at the lunacy he was reading.

' Controlling black holes,' he laughed to himself ' now that's just insane. Black holes are incredibly dense gravity vacuums, theirs no way to control one much less weaponize it.' Digging deeper he found a command that read ' Activate Experiment'. Looking around he noticed an observation platform looking down on a large room with all sorts of machines he couldn't readily identify. " Well lets see what these crazy S.O.B's managed to get running." Micheal says out loud hitting the button and walking onto the platform.

A buzzing begins as the many machines begin to slowly power up. Electricity begins sparking from four large rods around the room the bolts converging on a small orb made from some strange mineral heed never seen before. As the orb absorbed the electricity it began to emit waves of deep blue energy until it began to float off of its pedestal and was surrounded in a dark blue almost black energy. The Wanderer stood there dumbfounded, astounded by the sight that was playing out in front of him. The orb began to grow larger and larger until it had encompassed nearly half the space in the massive room. Slowly it began pulling in small objects from around the room, cups, clipboards, test tubes all were being pulled in. As time passed larger objects were being drawn in from beakers and hot plates to chairs and tables. Before he knew what was happening Micheal felt himself being pulled into the orb himself, turning towards the terminal he began to fight against the pull trying with all his tech enhanced might to reach the old computer his only hope being to shutdown the experiment. Just when he was almost in reach of the terminal he lost his footing, slipping he begins flying back. Rapidly being drawn to the ever growing orb of energy. As he begins to fly off the platform towards the orb he notices the towering poles that had been powering the experiment bending towards the imitation black hole.

Screaming as he's drawn into the core of the orb Micheal hears a sound of tearing metal before being drawn into a deep black void. Floating in an endless void the wanderer finds himself musing over his life. Growing up in the vault, Amata his first love, chasing his dad into the wasteland, trekking across the whole of D.C. More times than he could count looking for him, finally finding his father only to watch as he sacrifices himself to stop the enclave from claiming the purifier, joining the brotherhood, Sarah Lyons the love of his life and his lover. He grins as he remembers Sarah telling him they were expecting, they were going to get married after they wiped out the enclave. Then he remembered destroying Raven Rock, his heart swelling with pride at this memory only to descend into sorrow as the old wound of the battle for the purifier rips itself open. It was an overwhelming victory the Brotherhood with the aid of Micheal and Liberty Prime crushed the Enclave forces and retook the purifier. Sarah and Micheal were celebrating their victory in the heart of the purifier when Dr. Madison Lee came over the intercom. Informing them about the pressure build up and the need to start the purifier the Wanderer turns to enter the radiation filled chamber only to see Sarah sealing him out from the inside.

" I love you." she says through the blast door and moves to the console Micheal breaking every bone in his hands trying to break open the door, trying to pull Sarah out. Begging her the whole time not to do it, to come out before its to late. Watching her collapse to the floor he rips his helmet off his head, ignoring the pain from his broken hand, and starts bashing the reinforced bulletproof glass harder than his muscles had swung before. When the brotherhood finally found him he was lying in front of the door blood running down his face having resorted to bashing his skull against the door when his arms had stopped moving. The blood mixing with tears he hadn't shed since he was a child. They dragged him out of the room as the scribes went to work opening the door. They carried him outside past the Enclave prisoners the Brotherhood had managed to capture, when he saw them he started screaming like a man possessed.

"You bastards!" he screamed "Its your fault shes gone! You took them all from me!" He managed to break free from the knights who had been holding him back till that point and knocked a captured officer to the ground stomping down on his head over and over again cursing the Enclave's very existence. When they finally managed to restrain him again he'd begun raving about revenge screaming at the top of his lungs. "I'll kill you all! I'll hunt each and every one of you vile insects down and crush you like the vermin you are." The crazed look in his golden eyes causing the captives to break out into a cold sweat.

That declaration was what led him to the Mojave moving out to California looking for any remnants from the original Enclave. He took a job as a courier to help pay for his trip, he'd already had a significant fortune in caps from his time as a professional scavenger, but the work kept him occupied. That's what lead to him being captured by Benny, he'd gotten cocky and let his guard down. Taking his package shooting him in the head, Benny had left Micheal for dead, that was his fatal mistake. Tracking the rat across the Mojave and in to New Vegas the Wanderer forced his way into Benny's casino and beat him to a bloody pulp with his own freshly ripped off arms in front of his guests and body guards.

After finishing with Benny he was approached by an NCR solider and was hired to help them win the war. Wiping out every threat to his new employers while managing to help them ally with the local Brotherhood of Steel chapter he cut a bloody swath through the opposition. He even managed to track down and brutally slaughter a small handful of ex Enclave troops, before continuing his trek to ruins of the old Enclave base know as The Oil Rig.

Finding the facility completely abandoned he moved on searching all of the NCR territory looking for work and rumors of possible Enclave activity. Which led him to his current situation in Fort Black. Micheal was violently ripped from his musings as a massive pain exploded throughout his body, an agonizing feeling like something unnatural was growing beneath his flesh pushing its way clean into his nervous system. The pain continued to grow to near unbearable levels before it finally overwhelmed him and he blacked out.

AN: And so we come to the close the first installment of Just Another Wasteland I hope with how under used this particular genera is I came up with something both interesting and original to explain how my LW managed to get to the mass effect universe. Free E-Cookies for life for anyone who can guess what the orb was made of.


	2. Chapter 2

Just Another Wasteland

AN: Hi everybody. Seeing as the four reviews I got for this story were generally positive I decided to continue and see where this would go. Some of you noticed that my LW's back story is very similar to Plague's story from The Wildcard, yes I did in fact draw a lot of inspiration from there for my start mostly because he did a lot of things I wanted to do but things should diverge from Maltavis' story but credit where credit is due if you haven't read his story yet you really should. Enough of my pointless blathering time to move on.

Disclaimer: While I would love to write for Bioware and Bethesda that sadly has yet to become a reality so I can still claim no ownership over their material... Yet

JAW/JAW/JAW

The search for Saren was unfortunately slow going after rescuing Dr. Liara T'Soni From the Geth that had trapped her in the Prothien ruins on Therum. Shepard had been sweeping the Artemis Tau Cluster for any more signs of Geth activity when the Normandy picked up a distress beacon in the Sparta system. Upon locating the beacon and the team of dead Marines that had apparently responded to the signal before them the ground team was assaulted by a Thresher Maw and barely managed to destroy it. A field search of the bodies revealed them to be under the command of Admiral Kahoku. A return trip to the Citadel having already been planned to deliver an in person report to Ambassador Udina and restock on supplies Shepard went ahead and delivered the news about the Marines passing to the distraught admiral. Not long after Shepard received a message from the admiral about a rogue splinter cell code named 'Cerberus'. The first human Specter was tasked with verifying and if necessary cleaning out these supposed Cerberus strongholds. It was on another by then routine raids when he met 'The Wanderer'.

Shepard POV

"Okay team we should be closing in on the Cerberus base just over this ridge. Gear up and get ready for anything, I don't need to remind you about what we ran into last time do I?" Shepard asked getting a cringe from several of his ground team remembering those mindless Krogan berserkers they ran into last time. Wrex had been especially enraged to see his brothers stripped of what little pride they had left. As the Mako began cresting the hill a message from Joker rang over the intercom.

"Commander are you at the base yet?" Joker asked a confused tone in his voice.

"Not yet Joker. Why something wrong?" Shepard asked slightly worried.

"I'm not sure commander. It's just that we usually don't start hearing Cerberus distress signals until after you've started your assault, but a couple of minutes ago their radio's went live calling for assistance. The signal was coded but from what we managed to gather an experiment of theirs managed to get loose and it's tearing the place apart. Be careful in there it sounds worse than those Asari spliced super biotics you ran into a while back." Joker responded the worry edging it's way into his voice.

"Understood Joker. Thanks for the heads up. Keep in orbit we should be in and out fairly quickly. Shepard out. Alright team you heard that, Cerberus' little games have finally started biting them in the ass. I don't want any heroes in there. We assess the situation and determine the best way to move in this thing might not be hostile. If so we may be able to get information out of it." Shepard concluded as they reached their destination the partially hidden entrance to yet another underground facility. The team consisting of Kaidan Alenko, Ashley Williams, Tali Zora Na'Raia, Liara T'Soni, Urdnot Wrex, Garrus Vakarian, and commander James Shepard himself stepped out of the Mako and made their way inside. After an annoyingly slow ride down the lift the team quickly cleared the entrance way of threats before setting up standard formation. A makeshift barrier was set up several feet behind the door where Garrus would hold up with his sniper rifle to provide cover fire. Tali had hacked into the computer network and had projections from all the facilities cameras up and was monitering the base for any traps while Kaidan used Tali's link to take control of any turrets or automated defenses he could locate. Shepard and grunt positioned themselves directly to the sides of the door shotguns ready and biotics primed to charge in Ashley positioned to move in and act as a suppressor keeping the enemy distracted while the heavy hitters did as much damage as possible.

After Tali informed Shepard that most of the cameras in the room had been damaged and she could only see small parts of the room Shepard gave the signal and Tali quickly opened the door to the main chamber .Stepping through the door the team was greeted with a very unexpected sight. The room had been painted red with the blood of butchered scientists and soldiers alike. Most of the bodies were less than identifiable to put it lightly. Most of what they saw weren't so much bodies as random piles of parts spread all over the room. Standing in the center of the carnage was a single blood covered blond man holding a female soldier over his head from the front plate of her armor. On his back was a rifle he seemed to have looted from one of the soldiers further in. The most unusual thing however was the sight of his right arm. The flesh had opened up to reveal that it was robotic with two main plates slid apart allowing a foot long blade to extend from inside of his arm***** which he was using to threaten the woman.

"Now this is the last time I'm asking. Where the hell have you assholes taken me!" The blond 'monster' of a man demanded. The soldier finally managed to find her voice and all but yelled out her response.

"Base number 559373, Zone 332475, Amaranthine, Fortuna System, Horse Head Nebula!" She yelled out giving as precise a location as she could the mans response however was less the pleasant.

"Bullshit! The Horse Head Nebula is Fifteen Thousand light years away from earth! If your gonna lie at least make it believable!" The infuriated man yelled before driving his blade through her throat and out the back end severing her spinal cord in the process before throwing her to the side. The blade retracted as his arm quickly made it's way to his back where he retrieved his looted rifle before leveling it at the ground team and turning his head to look at them. "Who are you?" He asked his burning golden eyes betraying his wary curiosity. "If your armor is anything to go on your not with these vermin," He said using his head to gesture towards the bloody mess around the room ", so I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Do any of you know where the fuck we are?" The golden eyed man asked sighting down the barrel again to to double check his aim in case the team was hostile. Signaling to his team to lower their weapons which the stranger reciprocated.

"My name is Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, I'm a Specter." The commander began trying to gauge the unknown mans reactions. Unfortunately the man either had no clue what he was talking about or he had one hell of a poker face so he moved on to a different tactic. "We can get you any information or help you want lets get you out of here and cleaned up and we'll see about getting you what ever you need." Shepard tried, offering the man safety an information and hoping to get what he could in return.

"And why should I trust you? How do I know your not some merc's trying to haul me off to another lab to be poked at?" The blond accused taking up a more aggressive pose but keeping his gun lowered slightly. Attempting to use logic to placate the situation Shepard decides to point out the obvious.

"Well I guess the best argument for our side would be the simple fact that were you're only way out of here. Chances of another ship passing by here before you wind up starving to death are slim." The strangers harsh glare turned contemplative for a moment before he finally lowered his gun completely and loosened his posture.

"Fine then lets go. Just remember the last idiots who tried to capture me now look like this." The stranger said pointing once again to the bloody mess he had made of the Cerberus operatives.

"Fair enough," Shepard said holstering his Shotgun and stepping further into the room to begin the routine base stripping. "We'll be leaving in a moment just need to collect what we can."

"Not that I don't appreciate the view," Ashley quipped eying the strangers sizable 'build' "But I'd suggest getting something to wear. Not exactly safe out there for bear skin exposure." She pointed out. The stranger for his part moved on to searching for some intact armor that was more or less his size and the rest of the team started gathering up what they could. Tali, Kaidan, and Garrus were gathering data on what ever they could find while the others stripped any weapons, armor, upgrades, and supplies they could occasionally calling the tech specialists to hack open a container or two. The search was fairly routine until Tali managed to hack into the restricted files and located the gathered data on the golden eyed blond they had found. A quick skim led her to come to a basic conclusion this man was more augmented than any other human she had ever herd of. Mutations, implants, augmentations, enhancements, and that was before Cerberus got a hold of him after that they started pushing him trying to see how far they could push his physiology before he finally broke down, Cybernetics, major genetic rewriting, muscular enhancement surgery, neural rewiring, and other insane things trying to, as the head scientist stated, create the "Perfect Human".

Stepping into the Mako, the stranger in a new set of salvaged Cerberus guard armor, Shepard made the call to Joker.

"Were done here joker ready for pick up. Your never gonna believe what we found down here."

"Roger commander, Normandy in bound to pick up site. ETA less than five minutes see you soon."

JAW/JAW/JAW/

Micheal's POV

Back on the Normandy the ground team had gathered in the meeting room with their new tag along who was trying desperately trying to hide his confusion behind a mask of contemplative boredom. He'd been in space surrounded by aliens before but that wasn't exactly a pleasant experience for him, and now here he was on a different kind of space ship crewed by mostly humans with some aliens he had never seen before and they were staring at him waiting for him to speak. Opening his mouth the Lone Wanderer decided to start with simple vague information.

"My name is Micheal Connors, I was born on earth in the D.C. area of the United States. My early years were fairly calm nothing you'd call extraordinary. When I was nineteen I left home and started traveling that's when things got interesting. Attacks by raiders, scavengers trying to kill me for what ever I might have had at the time you know the simple life mostly. Met some interesting people learned from a few killed some others. Then one day I stumbled into something I wasn't supposed to and woke up in that hole being poked by some egg heads with a thing for asking how much something hurt on a scale from one to ten. One day they forgot to tighten one of my restraints and boom I met all of you." Micheal concluded getting a critical eye from the others.

"The human is good at making nothing into a long story. I'll give him that." The lizard looking thing said turning to the grey thing with three fingers and head spines who chuckled and nodded his agreement.

"Well I like him. I think he could be very useful in the future." The human woman said giving him another appraising once over.

"You just liked the eyeful you got of him planet side." The Asian looking dark haired man quipped back.

"Whats the matter Alenko feeling insecure, worried you wont 'measure up'." The woman retorted.

"Alright that's enough. Lets get our friend settled in and we can get to the introductions later." The commander ordered before standing up and ending the meeting right there. Everyone got up and moved to their regular stations leaving Micheal to explore the ship on his own.

"Before you go Micheal. We found this in a crate labeled research materials and thought it might belong to you." Shepard said handing the Wanderer a box. Inside were his old suit and duster combo and pipboy. Nodding his head in thanks the man left to put on his familiar armor.

JAW/JAW/JAW

A few hours later found Micheal standing in front of a window looking at the view of that endless starry void. Walking up behind him Ashley Williams took up a space next to him and looked out with him.

"It's beautiful isn't it." She commented trying to strike up conversation the the blond man.

"Cold, empty, inhospitable, and lifeless. Beautiful as it is. Its just another wasteland." The man said looking to Ashley with a sad light glowing just behind his expressive Golden eyes. The only emotion that could be seen on the mans face at all. He then turned and left leaving here standing there dumbstruck at that odd outlook on space.

AN: Done and it only took me a few months to do. That conversation is where I got the idea for the title. So what do you think. Thoughts, opinions, down right hatred, all are welcome. I'm taking suggestions for Perks for Micheal. Any suggestions are welcome. Till next time this is wiwuno signing out.

*(Cyborg Perk)


End file.
